Hopi Point

Author's Comments

Hopi Point juts out into the canyon far enough that you stop thinking of yourself as standing on a rim and start thinking of yourself as standing inside the canyon. That is the trick of this place, and it is why everyone comes here for sunset. The view runs nearly all the way around, and the Colorado glints in two directions if the light is right, a thin ribbon of metal so far below it seems impossible. I want to be honest about the crowds. They are real, and at sunset in October the platform fills the way a small amphitheater fills, and there will be tripods and conversation and someone's bluetooth speaker. You make peace with it or you do not come. I have learned to arrive an hour early and take a position on the western edge, where the rail bends and Isis Temple sits in the middle distance. From there, the show is not the sun itself but what the sun does to the formations as it drops. Shiva and Isis go through a sequence of color that I do not entirely have language for. Coral, then rust, then a deep red that holds for maybe four minutes before the shadow climbs the walls and the temples flatten into silhouette. Stay after. This is the part most people miss. The fifteen minutes after the sun is gone are when the canyon does its quietest work, when the sky goes lavender and the depths fill with a blue that feels almost liquid. The crowd thins fast. The wind picks up. And the canyon, finally, is something you can hear.

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